I GOT TH

E T-BONEWALKER

I GOT TH

E T-BONEWALKER ROY GAINES

BLU

ES

lmost a quarter of a centuryafter T-Bone Walker’s death,his clean and distinctivesound remains a key part of

the heritage of blues, R & B, jazz, andother genres. However, that signaturebluesy eloquence, both on electric guitarand vocals, survives most profoundly inthe artistry of the few remaining playerswho actually performed with andlearned directly from the older Walker.And of those, nobody absorbed T-Bone’sclassy style more fully over a longer pe-riod of time, or articulates it more authenti-cally today, than Roy Gaines.

As a fourteen-year-old prodigy whohad quickly absorbed the master’s basicidiom, Roy first shared the stage with hisidol T-Bone Walker at City Auditorium inHouston over forty-five years ago. Nowan accomplished multi-dimensional pro-fessional and recognized master musicianhimself, Roy has finally made the record-ing he’s been rehearsing for since then.Appropriately titled I Got the T-BoneWalker Blues, this CD is not so muchhomage to an individual as it is a tributeto a sound – a document of Roy’s vision

of what blues music is at its best.Growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward in

the era of Walker’s greatest artistic achieve-ment, the 1940s and ’50s, Roy experi-enced an essentially all-black culturalenvironment. Especially along then-vibrantLyons Avenue, the youngster who beganthrowing newspapers for the HoustonChronicle at age five caught glimpses ofthe most famous African-American celebri-ties of the day outside of establishmentssuch as the Crystal Hotel, Club Matinee, orCaldwell Tailors. Because of segregation,the common folk of the neighborhoodshared a necessary physical proximity withvisiting stars, directly interacting with them.In such a milieu the kids had real role mod-els readily available on their own turf, peo-ple whose hands they could shake andwhose presence and example could fuel as-pirations.

Coming from a home where theirmother kept a piano and encouraged mu-sical training, both Roy and his olderbrother Grady Gaines naturally chose he-roes who were professional musicians,men whose recordings dominated areajukeboxes and whose faces they could

AA actually hope to see around town. ForGrady, who went on to become one ofthe great saxophonists of R & B, that inspi-ration came first from Louis Jordon. ForRoy, who had started out as a pianist athis mother’s urging, the initial fascinationwas with the dapper Nat King Cole. But acrucial realization at age fourteen sud-denly caused him to switch instruments andfollow the path of T-Bone Walker.

“I was playing piano then so I guessthat’s why Nat was attractive to me,” Royexplains. “And I started playing with mybrother’s band. Well, Grady used to walkthe floor with the saxophone, and whatwould happen, all the girls would be com-ing back to the bandstand looking forhim, chasing him back.”Motivated bothby sibling rivalry and hormonal instinct,Roy vowed, “Boy, I’ve got to get me someof these girls!” So he promptly aban-doned the piano. “I decided I had to playguitar, something that I could walk aroundwith if I wanted to have the same effect ongirls like Grady did.”

Using money his mother had savedfrom his earnings on the newspaper route,Roy decisively purchased the instrument

that would change his life.“My first guitarcame from Crown Jewels downtown. Itwas a Kay, and it was amplified.” Recall-ing the excitement he felt coming homewith the new acquisition , he beams,“Man, I was going to learn to play electricguitar – just like T-Bone Walker!”

After mastering his first chord (a B-flat) with help from eventual Duke-Peacocksession player Clarence Holliman, andthen taking a few lessons from former bigband guitarist Steve Hester, Roy was com-fortable with the new instrument. “Be-cause I had taken piano, when I startedwith Mr. Hester I knew a lot about music,so I moved quite rapidly. In three monthsI was playing two of T-Bone Walker’ssongs and one of Gatemouth Brown’s.” Itcomes as no surprise that Roy’s earliestrepertoire consisted of hits by the two gi-ants of electric Texas blues, men whose“battles” on stage at The Bronze Peacockor the Eldorado Ballroom were regularcultural events in Houston’s black commu-nity. However, Roy ultimately had littletrouble choosing his favorite between thetwo rivals because, as he explains it, “Iwas just so much more like ’Bone.”

A short time later, after first making aname for himself covering a few ofWalker’s songs at the Whispering Pinesnightclub in the Trinity Gardens area, theyoung devotee finally got to meet the mas-ter face to face. “When T-Bone came totown, they told him there’s this little boy,fourteen years old, playing like you. Hesaid, ‘Well, that’s good.’ Anyway, I heardthat T-Bone knew about me, and I went tosee him at the City Auditorium downtown.They let me in, and I got the chance to gobackstage and tell him that I admired himso.” Happy simply to have met his heroand ready to take his place out in the audi-ence, Roy was almost overwhelmed bywhat next transpired.

“T-Bone said, ‘You stay right here.Don’t you go no place. I’m going to callyou on stage.’ And when he went onstage and had played about three songs,he told the people that he was going tobring me on, and boy, I was standing backthere about to pee on myself,” Roy recalls.Then it happened: “He called, and allthem people saw me come out there, a lit-tle boy. . . . He said, ‘I’m going to sing,and I want you to play behind me.’” Hold-ing Walker’s enormous Gibson guitar in

his trembling hands and unsure of himselfin such a daunting situation, the novicewas saved by the next sentence the star ut-tered: “He spoke to me right over themike, in front of all those people, and hesaid, ‘Do Cold Cold Feeling.’” To this dayRoy interprets that moment as a sign thathe had found his destiny. “Man, that wasone of my favorites! One of the very firstsongs I had learned! So I started the introto that, and he came in singing, and Iplayed, man.”

The impact of Roy’s first public ap-pearance with T-Bone Walker was huge forthe young guitarist. “When he left town, Igot all kind of calls for jobs,” he says, recit-ing a long list of gigs as “T-Bone Jr.” thatsuddenly became available to him at themost prestigious clubs in Houston. “Oh itgot exciting after T-Bone!” Roy capitalizedon his enhanced local reputation and con-tinued to develop his performing skills overthe next two years. Then, at age sixteen,he followed Walker’s example and relo-cated to California.

After winning a talent show in Los An-geles, Roy secured his first professionaltouring work playing with the Roy Miltonband, and the stage was set for a career

that would eventually include a stint back-ing New York-based singer Chuck Willis,followed by an impressive series of collab-orations with major stars such as Billie Holi-day, Jimmy Rushing, Joe Williams, BrookBenton, Bobby Bland, Little Junior Parker,Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and numerousothers. However, Roy never forgot his orig-inal inspiration, his role model, and in factmaintained a close personal relationshipwith T-Bone Walker until his mentor’s deathin 1975.

“See, T-Bone has helped me allthrough my life, is what I’m getting at. Ourpaths have crossed ever since that day atthe City Auditorium – and crossed in verymuch the same way as that first meeting,”Roy gratefully remembers. As the talentedkid matured, his role in Walker’s lifeevolved from that of a youthful imperson-ator and eager student to that of an occa-sional caretaker and constant friend.“Many years later, when he was nearpassing away, I used to – I didn’t know hewas as sick as he was – I’d take him onjobs... He would always ask me to comeup and play, and I’d say, ‘That’s all right –I just want to watch you.’ And he’d say,‘Naw naw, come up and play some.

Come up and let the people hear you.’And I’d play.”

Roy still treasures the simple wordsWalker’s wife, Vida Lee, whispered to himone day years ago: “Daddy thinks a lot ofyou.” And although Mrs. Walker report-edly regularly referred to her spouse as“Daddy,” the paternalistic implication re-mains important to Roy. For he – moresothan for countless other guitarists who haveidolized T-Bone Walker from afar – cantrace his musical lineage beyond therecordings and the concerts to the personhimself, a man he knew well and loved.And like a fiercely proud son, Roy remainsdevoted to the memory of his musical fa-ther. “To this day, nobody can beat ‘Boneon stand up singing and playing the guitarat the same time, nobody. . . ‘Bone is thetrue king of blues.”

With such personal history it seemsnatural for Roy to assert, “I’ve alwayswanted to do a T-Bone Walker record.”And now, after teaming with noted pro-ducer Joe Harley and a sublime cast ofsupporting musicians, that lifelong dreamhas been brilliantly realized. I Got the T-Walker Bone Blues features ten tracksassociated with the major phase of

Walker’s career, plus a tune made famousby one of his contemporaries. Collectivelythese eleven studio performances, allrecorded live direct to two track, defineRoy’s notion of absolute blues purity. “Thatwas the whole idea, to bring the bluesback into its proper light,” he explains.“It’s the early T-Bone Walker. It’s ‘Bonewhen ‘Bone was young.”

And indeed, this recording delightfullyevokes an older sound of blues – the way itwas back when horns, especially the trum-pet, had only recently yielded the lead po-sition to the electric guitar (as wouldincreasingly be the case in the wake ofWalker’s seminal example). From theopening rendition of Stormy Mondaythrough all but two of the remaining tracks,horns are a major presence. Bold, vitalblasts of trumpet (both muted and straight)and the smoky-throated sophistication oftenor saxophone remind us repeatedly ofwhere blues orchestration originated – andhow Walker ultimately changed history byre-creating such fluent horn-like precisionon the fretboard of his electric guitar. Onsong after song, as Roy swaps spiritedsolos with trumpet and sax, augmented oc-casionally by piano, his rightful role as cre-

ative curator of the T-Bone technique is re-vealed. The nuances of his playing as-tound us twofold – first at the innovation ofWalker’s precedent and then at the faithfulinterpretation by the heir apparent.

But despite Roy’s impeccable devo-tion to the master’s style (on perfectly ac-cented vocals as well as on guitar), thiscollection still has the capacity to surpriseand enlighten. For instance, in the LesHite composition T-Bone Blues (firstrecorded by Walker for the Varsity labelin 1940), the dominant sound is the slip-pery twang of pedal steel guitar, an instru-ment associated more with country &western or Hawaiian music than withblues. Yet Roy’s version here is true to T-Bone’s original; in both cases, a support-ing musician contributes the uniquesonority of the pedal steel – sliding, moan-ing, bending notes into one melismaticdreamscape – while the standard guitarworks a slow and easy foundation riff sug-gesting the rhythm of horses amblingacross wide open spaces.

The pedal steel motif recurs in thesubsequent song, an inspired andprovocative bonus among these Walkerclassics – a tune by one of his contempo-

raries from the other side of the tracks, soto speak: Hank Williams’ Honky TonkBlues, reinvented and rendered here inwondrous T-Bone style. In some ways, thisarrangement is Roy’s most perceptivestatement about the legacy of the blues,emphasizing as it does the syncretism ofseemingly disparate elements in the tradi-tion of the best American music. In addi-tion to the pedal steel guitar, an exquisitefiddle sound emerges in the song, firstfaintly as background ambiance and thenas featured solo, gracefully communicat-ing anew the fundamental role of blues intraditional western swing. As Roy, whowas once professionally managed byHank’s ex-wife Audrey, is quick to pointout, the music of both Walker andWilliams “is blues, and it came along atthe same time, in the late forties.” Andjust as the original version of T-Bone Bluescould legitimately incorporate the exoticaof pedal steel guitar, this composition bya white man who sang with a nasal into-nation could incorporate blues.

I Got the T-Bone Walker Bluesconcludes with a remarkably contrasting

reprise of Stormy Monday, this time ren-dered as a stripped-down acoustic shufflein the manner of another colossus of LoneStar guitar, Lightnin’ Hopkins. Here Royleaves us with a final insight regarding theprimal source of T-Bone’s uptown sound.Here he gives us the other half of what hecalls “the two sides of the Texas blues,” in-directly helping us recall that a Dallasyoungster named Aaron Thibeaux Walkerwas raised by a mama who includedBlind Lemon Jefferson among regularguests at Sunday afternoon jam sessionsin her home. Here Roy reminds us thatbefore there were any electric guitars,there still was blues. And as he strikes thelast chord, steel strings resonating acrossthe hole in a wooden box, he’s taken usback to where it all begins.

Roger Woodcontributing writer, Living Blues

Executive Producers: Ying Tan and Sebastian Koh

Produced by: Joe HarleyRecorded by: Michael C. Ross at

OceanWay/Record One, Sherman Oaks,CA, August 11 & 12, 1998

Assistant Engineer: Rafa SardinaMastered by: Bernie Grundman using the

Pacific Micorsonics a/D with Apogee UV-22 Super Encoding SystemRecorder: ATR-100 2 Track

Tape: BASF 900 @ 30 ipsMicrophones: AKG C-12, C-12A, KM 54Neumann M-50, M-49, U-67, 251, U-47FET,

Sony C55p, Shure 57Photography: Joe D’Allesio

Graphic Design: Kathleen B.Liner Notes: Roger Wood

Roy Gaines management Danny Kessler @American Classics (818) 980 9777

Roy Gaines plays a Gibson 175 and 1961Martin D-18 (acoustic)

For further info please contactYing Tan, Analogue Archive Pte. Ltd. (Singapore):Phone/Fax: (65) 468-6673E-mail: yingjtan@pacific.net.sg

in USA contactGroove Note RecordsUS marketing and sales:Phone/Fax: (323) 467-1333E-mail:groovenation@earthlink.net